Their previous venture — a physical coupon booklet into which they had sunk their combined savings — flopped in just months. And online retailing was still a largely unproven endeavor in 2010, particularly in India, a country where most people don’t have bank accounts, let alone credit cards to make purchases on the Internet. When an angel investor offered $200,000 as seed money, they took only half and aimed for just 100 transactions a day. Snapdeal is now on track to handle more than $1 billion in sales this year for over 30,000 merchants across more than 500 categories of goods and services. “We sell a sari every 12 seconds,” Mr. Bahl said.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2014/07/29/the-new-bazaar-online-shopping-catches-on-in-india-with-buyers-and-global-investors/